I'll be honest, I got a late start today so if this post seems rushed, I will try to make up for it on a different day.
"And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God."
This verse is funny to me. Not funny as in ha ha lol, but rather different. Thus far in the Book of Mormon we have seen a lot of scriptures that are pretty straight forward. Yes there is a lot to read into but we haven't seen much evidence of antiquated speech, cultural differences, or anything like that. Here I would say there may be evidence of something going on that we are not sure of, whether it be on a long time ago level or on a spiritual/heavenly level. So we talked last time about him being transfigured and whatnot. Then he comes home and he is so exhausted from his spiritual encounter that he has a vision. Talk about kicking a man while he's down right ;). The footnotes under vision reference things that occur in the next couple chapters (which for us will be a couple months unfortunately). That makes me think that during this vision he will come to understand what he must do for his family. This vision spans several verses so don't think you are getting off the hook that early, but lets continue to the setup.
So he sees the heavens open. That in and of itself causes my mind to boggle. I don't really think that all the angels and God are in the clouds looking down on us but don't lie, that is exactly the scene that pops into your head. The clouds part, we zoom past the pearly gates to God on his throne right? I would just love to know what the opening of heaven would look like. This especially intrigues me because almost all the footnotes have the exact same wording. Six or so examples of people recording "the heavens were opened" and one of them is from the Doctrine and Covenants. Obviously there is a commonality to this opening that maybe one day I will get to witness.
Then there is the phrase "he thought he saw" that is interesting to me. Now I may or may not have had a few experiences that I would consider spiritual and vision-like, and I LOVE that he described it this way. I feel like all of these experiences for me have always been the very minimum information that I need to understand what is going on, and what I need to know. At the end I have no doubt about what I have experienced, but there is something about it that is confusing. "I thought I saw" is a great phrase. It isn't because you are questioning what you experienced, but it is because you didn't really "see" anything. It's like you felt something in a visual way? I don't know, it is rough to explain which I why I love seeing things like this recorded.
Finally, what he thought he saw were numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God. We will see how the vision continues, but I doubt that in the afterlife our sole purpose is to sit there and sing praises to God. So I wonder what he was seeing. I think he saw just that but is this a vision to show him something that doesn't necessarily happen every day but is cool to see for Lehi's benefit? I mean, kind of how people show clips of General Conference and you think what the crap, do they always gather in these huge numbers? I wonder what scene Lehi was shown? was it a family council where everyone was gathered to be up there as a family and talk and listen to God? I love the thought of Family Home Evenings in heaven. After all, we are supposed to have the same sociality as we have here right?
"And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God."
This verse is funny to me. Not funny as in ha ha lol, but rather different. Thus far in the Book of Mormon we have seen a lot of scriptures that are pretty straight forward. Yes there is a lot to read into but we haven't seen much evidence of antiquated speech, cultural differences, or anything like that. Here I would say there may be evidence of something going on that we are not sure of, whether it be on a long time ago level or on a spiritual/heavenly level. So we talked last time about him being transfigured and whatnot. Then he comes home and he is so exhausted from his spiritual encounter that he has a vision. Talk about kicking a man while he's down right ;). The footnotes under vision reference things that occur in the next couple chapters (which for us will be a couple months unfortunately). That makes me think that during this vision he will come to understand what he must do for his family. This vision spans several verses so don't think you are getting off the hook that early, but lets continue to the setup.
So he sees the heavens open. That in and of itself causes my mind to boggle. I don't really think that all the angels and God are in the clouds looking down on us but don't lie, that is exactly the scene that pops into your head. The clouds part, we zoom past the pearly gates to God on his throne right? I would just love to know what the opening of heaven would look like. This especially intrigues me because almost all the footnotes have the exact same wording. Six or so examples of people recording "the heavens were opened" and one of them is from the Doctrine and Covenants. Obviously there is a commonality to this opening that maybe one day I will get to witness.
Then there is the phrase "he thought he saw" that is interesting to me. Now I may or may not have had a few experiences that I would consider spiritual and vision-like, and I LOVE that he described it this way. I feel like all of these experiences for me have always been the very minimum information that I need to understand what is going on, and what I need to know. At the end I have no doubt about what I have experienced, but there is something about it that is confusing. "I thought I saw" is a great phrase. It isn't because you are questioning what you experienced, but it is because you didn't really "see" anything. It's like you felt something in a visual way? I don't know, it is rough to explain which I why I love seeing things like this recorded.
Finally, what he thought he saw were numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God. We will see how the vision continues, but I doubt that in the afterlife our sole purpose is to sit there and sing praises to God. So I wonder what he was seeing. I think he saw just that but is this a vision to show him something that doesn't necessarily happen every day but is cool to see for Lehi's benefit? I mean, kind of how people show clips of General Conference and you think what the crap, do they always gather in these huge numbers? I wonder what scene Lehi was shown? was it a family council where everyone was gathered to be up there as a family and talk and listen to God? I love the thought of Family Home Evenings in heaven. After all, we are supposed to have the same sociality as we have here right?
Comments
Post a Comment